“My mother’s truck. Her grandson blew the engine. Lowell and Beryl are going to help me rebuild it in her driveway.”

Josh was quiet for a second. “Lowell Fisk and Beryl Unger?”

“Yes.”

“Nora, those guys are eighty.”

“Eighty-one and seventy-six.”

He laughed. “Take the hoist. Take the engine stand too. And the parts washer. And whatever else you need.” He paused. “Tell Lowell he still owes me a donut from last Thursday.”

On Saturday morning, Lowell and Beryl showed up at Mom’s farmhouse at seven-thirty in Lowell’s old Chevy, wearing seed caps and flannel shirts, carrying a red toolbox apiece. Beryl had brought a thermos of coffee and a sack of cinnamon rolls from the bakery in Clay Center.

Mom came out on the porch in her green cardigan. She’d set up a webbed aluminum lawn chair at the edge of the gravel, right beside the truck.

“I’m going to watch,” she announced. “If you don’t mind.”

“Evelyn,” Lowell said, tipping his cap, “we’d be honored.”

We pulled the engine that first Saturday, right there in the gravel.

It took us six hours. We drained the coolant and the oil, and unbolted the radiator, the fan, the alternator, the starter, the exhaust manifolds, the carburetor, and the wiring harness. Lowell labeled every wire with a piece of masking tape and a ballpoint pen. Beryl put every bolt in a coffee can, with a note written on the lid saying where it came from.

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